The Mermaid and Her Human
by poestheblackcat
Summary: Fairytale AU. There is a story that fishermen tell about a mermaid and her human. Eliot/Parker, for the amazing Ultrawoman's birthday. Hope you like it, hun!


Summary: Fairytale AU. There is a story that fishermen tell about a mermaid and her human. Eliot/Parker, for the amazing **Ultrawoman**'s birthday. Hope you like it, hun!

For **Ultra** because she loves fairytales _maybe_ as much as she loves Leverage. _Maybe_._ Almost. _But not as much as she loves Christian Kane. Probably. Note to **Ultra**: if there is crying, I apologize for making you cry on your birthday. I tried to put a bit of subtle, silly humor in it, though…(Actually, on second thought, maybe mermaid!Parker is a bit too cracky…)

Happy Birthday!

This is a take on…no, a parody of…no, okay, how about: an AU of Leverage very, very loosely based on _The Little Mermaid_ (and possibly, as an afterthought, _The Last Unicorn)_, starring Parker and Eliot, with cameos by the rest of the team. It's mostly Parker at the beginning.

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**The Mermaid and Her Human**

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There is a story that fishermen tell about a mermaid and her human.

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Once upon a time, in a sea far away, there lived a little mermaid. She had long golden hair and a lovely blue-and-silver tail.

The little mermaid spent her days swimming in the deep blue-green ocean, exploring the dark underwater caves, and racing with the schools of glistening silvery fish.

She was alone, but she never knew it. She didn't understand _alone._

One day, the little mermaid came across something shining in the sand at the bottom of the sea. In the murky darkness, she could not see what it was. It felt hard, and was round and flat. She could feel rough impressions on it. She wanted to see what strange shell she had discovered, so she took it up, up, up to the surface of the ocean to look at it in the light of the sun.

As she swam further and further up, she saw how shiny it was, how it sparkled and caught the rays of the sun. When she could finally examine the strange shell, she found that it almost glowed in the dazzling light, just like the sun, high in the sky.

At that moment, the little mermaid _felt_.

She looked and looked at this shining, sparkling piece of golden sun in her hand, turning it this way and that, putting it in her mouth to bite with her sharp white teeth, relishing in its taste, its metallic tang. She looked at this strange round shell and felt something bright flicker to life inside of her, bright and sparkling and amazing.

This was the first time the little mermaid had ever seen money. She loved it.

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The little mermaid didn't remember the first time she ever saw a human.

She could see them, far away on the coast, and closer, in their little boats, bobbing up and down in the waves. She watched them from deep under the surface and wondered why they didn't come down into the water with her and all the other fish around her.

She discovered why when she saw one of the No-Fins, as she called them, fall into the water. He splashed and spluttered and screamed. He tired quickly and she watched him sink deep into the sea until he stopped moving. When the tide washed the still, lifeless body onto the shore, she followed it out of curiosity. Perhaps once he reached land, he would start moving and walking about again.

The man never moved.

That was how the little mermaid learned that humans need to be in the air, just like fish need to be in the water, to survive.

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She liked to watch them, the humans. They made strange sounds to call out to each other, like dolphins and whales. They paddled on the surface of the water in their strange boats – boats of all sizes – and scurried on the decks, balancing precariously on their two not-fins like they did on the land.

They dropped things into the water, too. All kinds of things, things that were good to eat and some that weren't, but sometimes, shiny things fell into the ocean. Sometimes, the shiny things were sharp, barbed hooks. Fish got caught on them, so whenever the mermaid saw one of those hooks, she made sure to tug it far out to sea, so that the string it was invariably attached to broke.

The little mermaid had a collection of hooks, a pile of them, along with all the other shiny objects she had found over the years.

Humans were such fascinating creatures. She liked to watch them, and sometimes, sometimes, they saw her. She ducked back under the water and swam far, far away whenever that happened.

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The little mermaid loved storms. The thunder and the lightning – the way the sky and the sea lit up in brief, stark, ragged flashes of white light and the rolling, rumbling crash that came chasing after. She loved the roughness of the sea in a storm, the way the waves knocked her to and fro, the rain that pelted down on her if she rose up out of the water.

Storms meant that the next morning, once the sea calmed, there might be shiny things that had fallen from broken boats and sunk to the bottom of the sea.

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The water shook and shuddered under the torrent of rain pounding down from the sky. Rising to the surface of the water, the little mermaid saw a ship floundering in the dark sea, struggling to stay afloat. With a thundering crack, the main mast split in half and crashed onto the deck of the ship, crushing it. Men, so many men, fell out of the ship.

In the flurry of all these things happening, the little mermaid ducked back into the water, frightened by the men and big chunks of broken boat being so close. Then she swam back up because No-Fins needed air to survive. If they didn't get air, they went limp and stopped moving forever. They didn't belong in her world.

Holding onto a floating board, the little mermaid swam to the nearest flailing human and pushed it at him for him to grab on to. She did this with as many of the humans as she could find. Some of them had already stopped moving, but she draped them over the boards anyway. The tide would bring them back to shore eventually.

"Sam! Samuel!"

The little mermaid didn't know what that cry meant, but it had a distressed sound in it. Of course, the human was in the water, where he couldn't breathe, and so he must be frightened. That was it.

The mermaid pushed a board towards the human and watched him grab on. What was funny about this one, however, was that he kept looking around for something and shouting, "Sam! Sam!" over and over again.

The lightning flashed and he locked eyes with her. Startled by the closeness of the human, the mermaid dove back underwater and stayed there for the duration of the storm, only swimming back up when a human slid off of his board and slipped under the surface. She tugged him back on and went back under the water.

All through the night, the distressed calls continued: "Sam! Sam!"

…until they stopped.

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When morning came and the seas calmed, boats came out and began collecting the humans floating on their boards.

In the light of the daytime sun filtering down through the clear blue-green water, the mermaid found one small human tangled in a clump of seaweed. Though he swayed in the movement of the water, he wasn't moving.

Then she understood. The human, the one who had shouted, "Sam" all through the storm, he was calling for his lost calf.

The little mermaid reached out and touched the boy's still cheek. Young, she thought, this one was young. Many of the humans who fell out of their boats were older, bigger, with coarse bristles on their faces. This one's cheeks were still smooth.

The mermaid _felt_ again. This time, it was a bad, clenching, dark feeling inside, so unlike the bubbly effervescence she felt whenever she added to her collection of shiny objects.

She gently untangled the small human from his leafy green tomb and carried him back to shore.

As she laid him down on the sand, she heard shouts and suddenly, there were humans swarming all over the beach, grabbing her arms and her beautiful tail in rough hands. She struggled, but they were too strong for her, especially out of the water.

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They took her away from the sea, her home.

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Humans came from all around to look at her, gawk at her, and prod at her tail – no longer as shiny as it once was. They stared at her through the bars of the cage they kept her in with her wooden tub of dirty, stale water. They fed her dead fish that smelled bad, when they remembered to feed her at all.

They draped her cage in colorful fabric, blue and green like the sea, but nothing like it, and tied seashells onto her breasts. A dead and dried starfish was attached to her hair.

She had never before even thought about covering her bare breasts, and now, they were always red and scratched and bleeding from the rough edges of the shells. She was punished if she tried to take them off. The starfish in her hair crumbled to pieces after a few months.

The little mermaid missed the sea. She missed racing with the silvery schools of fish and floating amidst the shining clouds of jellyfish. She missed her treasure trove. She missed home. She missed _freedom._

The little mermaid was still lonely, even amongst so many humans.

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The mermaid was bought and sold many times over the years. Bought and sold, bought and sold, carted off to one side of the country and then to the other.

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A man bought her. Ian, the Lord of Blackpoole.

The lord had a garden, a vast menagerie filled with all sorts of exotic creatures. The little mermaid was his prize acquisition.

She was given a pool to live in. It was big – but not as big as the wide open sea – and there were rocks sculpted artfully onto the edges. There were sea plants and fishes swimming in it with her, and a small waterfall splashed a cycle of new water into the pool.

It still wasn't home, but it was…better.

There was a man who took care of her. Each day, he would come and throw fish into her pool, live fish, different kinds of fish. He must have observed which ones were her favorites and which ones she never touched because the spurned fish were never seen again, and the ones which she happily ate were thrown daily into her pool for her to hunt down and catch.

The little mermaid never paid much attention to humans – they all blended into each other after a while – but this one, she liked.

He had gentle hands that removed the sharp, scratchy shells from her breasts and the dead starfish from her hair as he combed out the tangles with a brush until it shone like the sun again. He talked to her with a low voice that rumbled, and rose and fell like the sea.

He sounded like the sea. He sounded like home.

The man would come and sit on a rock by her pool and talk to the little mermaid, and every day, she understood more and more of the strange sounds.

He would tell her about his other charges, the other supernatural creatures in his care – he was the zoo- and groundskeeper – Shelley the unicorn, and Apollo the pixie. There was also Kaye-Lynn the siren (he seemed quite fond of her), and Quinn the griffin.

He told her about his father, a fisherman, who would tell him stories about a mermaid who was perhaps the only one of her kind. Fishermen had told these stories for hundreds of years, passed down from generation to generation.

The man told her about how from the time that he was a young boy, he had always gone out to the sea with his father, and how every night, they would come back home to sell their catch in the village. He told the mermaid about how as a young man, he had wanted to keep going instead of coming back in to the land every day, and so he had set out to be a soldier. He had traveled, and fought in wars, and he had risen quickly through the ranks to become the captain of the army of the Dark Lord, Damien the Ruthless. But what should have satisfied him had not, he told her with eyes as blue, blue, blue as the sea, and he had resigned and run and hidden, and finally, he had come here to be the groundskeeper for Blackpoole.

He rather liked it here, it seemed, except that it panged him to see all these magnificent creatures, these powerful _beings_, imprisoned in their gilded cages.

"I bet you miss the ocean, huh?" he asked her as he ate his lunch, "Bet you miss being able to go anywhere you want."

The mermaid merely looked at him, or rather, at his food.

Noticing this, the man gave an amused snort and tore off a piece. "Here, want some bread?" he asked as he tossed it in her pond.

The light brown _thing_ floated on the surface of the water for a while until it began to sink. The mermaid sank slowly down with it, watching it with curious eyes until finally, she snapped it up in her mouth.

Then she immediately spit it out, rising up to the surface to scowl at her human, who laughed.

The middle part of his food still looked interesting, so the mermaid continued to stare at the reddish-brown bits until the man chuckled again and tossed a piece in, saying that she probably would not like this either.

He was wrong.

At her delight, the man laughed again – a soft happy sound like waves crashing together on a nice day – and gave her another piece. "That's bacon."

"Par-kor," the mermaid tried to mimic, "Par-kor."

The man looked surprised that she could speak – it was the first time she had ever attempted to imitate human words, after all – then recovered from his shock, repeating the word to her.

"Ba-con."

"Par-ker."

"Ba-con."

"Parker."

"Alright then," the man laughed, "Parker it is. I'm gonna eat the rest of my Parker sandwich, if that's alright with you."

"Parker."

She swam away from him then and let him finish his sandwich. She watched him, though, and when he picked up a small bundle wrapped in cloth, she swam close to him and splashed him with her tail.

"Wha- ?!"

The mermaid pounced on the bundle that had flown from the man's hands when she had surprised him, and carefully unwrapped it.

Hard round discs. Like her precious shells that shone and sparkled in the sun, except not shiny. Brown, and they crumbled to pieces like sand.

The mermaid examined them with curious eyes and hands, then poked her tongue out to taste.

_Ohhhh._

The man watched her gobble her pilfered treat with amusement dancing in his twinkling blue eyes, and wiped the water from his face with his shirt sleeve.

"You stole my cookies."

"Parker," the mermaid said again.

"Cookie," the man repeated.

"Parker."

"How about I call _you_ Parker, you little thief?" he said with false ire, shaking his head as he stood up and brushed the crumbs from his trousers.

"Parker."

The little mermaid, now newly dubbed Parker, splashed the groundskeeper with her tail again and swam down into her little man-made grotto.

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His name was Eliot. His smile dazzled like the sun.

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People came to see her here, too. She liked it best when it was just her and Eliot, and so did he, it seemed, but these people were Lord Ian's guests.

Parker liked to look at them. They wore colorful clothing and glittered. The women were oddly shaped, with the same kind of top as men, except for their breasts, which were so exposed that the mermaid wondered what the point of all the fabric was. Their bottom halves were peculiar, ballooning out like jellyfish.

No wonder, she thought, no wonder humans were so fascinated by her beautiful, slender, fishlike tail that sparkled in the sun.

She liked it best when these glittering humans came close, and even better when they crouched down to look at her.

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They were having an argument, her human and the other one, the stubby-looking one with the shiny head. Sterling. That's it. James Sterling.

"The necklace is missing, and the last place the Duchess wore it was here," Sterling shouted, arms waving.

Eliot was angry, the little mermaid could tell. She had come to be able to read her human quite well since she had started living here. "Are you accusing me of stealing it, Sterling?" he asked quietly – _stormy eyes_, she thought,_ those were his stormy eyes_.

"Oh, he's smarter than he looks," the fat man said as if to the air, which the mermaid found quite perplexing, "Yes, you idiot," he said, facing the groundskeeper again, "I am accusing you of stealing the Duchess's diamond necklace!"

Eliot's fists clenched, as if trying to keep from hitting the other man, but it seemed to be a losing battle, until…

…a clam flew through the air and hit Lord Ian's steward on the back of his balding head with a resounding _plonk_.

Sterling whirled around and glared at her. "Did you throw that?" he sputtered, rubbing his sore head.

"Oh, you're smarter than you look," Eliot muttered under his breath from behind him. He came forward, picking up the clam on the way, and knelt down to speak softly to her, cupping his hand around her cheek. "Don't do that, sweetheart." He handed her the still-alive clam, eyes twinkling, "It's a waste of food."

Parker stuck her tongue out at him and took the clam, retreating to a nook by the waterfall to eat it by prying the shell open.

Sterling sniffed, regaining (some of) his composure, and stalked off after ordering Eliot to "control that animal."

"What a bastard, huh?" Eliot commented, settling himself down on his usual rock.

Parker finished her snack and dove down into her grotto. When she reemerged, she had something clutched in her hands. Something that shone and sparkled.

Eliot stared for a moment, then threw his head back and laughed. Waves crashing on the shore. Beautiful. "You little thief," he chuckled, "Here," he held out his hand, "Let me have that."

The mermaid drew back and pouted, holding her treasure close to her chest.

The human gave her a disapproving look. "Parker. Come on. You won't get into trouble. I promise. I'll tell them it fell into the water."

Parker shook her head. _No_.

"Come on, Parker. Give it to me," he coaxed. "I'll bring you cookies tomorrow."

Parker tilted her head and wondered how she could get those cookies without giving up her treasure. In the end, however, she swam to Eliot and put the diamond necklace into his outstretched hand.

"Thank you, darling."

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Her newly-restarted collection of shiny objects was starting to turn red. Some of the pieces were, anyway. The mermaid scratched at the redness with sharp fingernails and licked her hand.

_Blegh._

This had happened before, to her other collection on the outside, but she didn't know what this red disease was. Not knowing what had happened to her precious treasure, she brought them all to Eliot.

"What's this?" he asked, kneeling down to take a look at the miscellany of metal objects the mermaid had dumped at his feet. Nails, coins, a small dagger, jewelry, a horseshoe. He picked up something that looked like a buckle from a boot. _How in heaven's name…?_

He shouldn't have been surprised; Apollo the pixie had the same attraction to shiny things.

The mermaid prodded at his foot, then pointed at the red crescent moon that had been so nice and shiny when she had first taken it.

The groundskeeper picked the rusted horseshoe up and examined it. "It's rusty," he commented. "You aren't supposed to keep iron in too wet a place. That's why some of these have gone all red like that."

He pointed at the coins and the jewelry. "These are gold and silver. They don't rust."

Parker furrowed her brow, then scooped up the non-rusty items and took them back to her hiding place, knowing for certain now that the rest of her treasure would not be affected by the awful red disease.

Above her at the edge of the pool, she heard Eliot chuckling. The sound of the tide at sunset.

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Eliot was up to something. For a while now, he had been acting strangely, just sitting by her pool with his arms clasped loosely around his knees, watching her swim and chase the fish around the enclosure.

"I bet you miss home," he had started saying again, "Bet you miss being free."

She did, but here, Parker wasn't alone. For the first time in her long life, she wasn't alone.

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"What's it like?" he asked her, "What's it like to be able to swim without coming up for air?"

Parker swam up close to him with a playful expression dancing in her eyes and beckoned him to crouch down to her level, which he did.

She grinned up at him, then reached a hand out to grab a well-muscled shoulder…and pulled him into the water with a great splash.

The human had little time to react as her lips crashed down on his as soon as he hit the water.

After the initial surprise, Eliot's arms wrapped around her slender body and pulled her close, his hands cupping around her face and the back of her head, and his funny two legs treading water to keep them in place under the water.

He deepened their kiss. She deepened it further, relishing in his warmth. He responded by holding her closer, feeling the water turn warm around them from the heat of his body, feeling her cold lips warm from the heat of his kiss.

When he started to pull back to go to the surface to take in air, she held on for a minute longer (his warm fingers scrabbled against her face), then let him go up, surfacing gracefully as she watched the human cough and gasp for breath.

"Are you insane? What is wrong with you?" he sputtered when he'd caught the breath to speak, heaving himself up onto dry land, "You can't go around pulling people into the water like that. They could drown! Humans need air, unlike some people," he grumbled, although the mermaid knew that he was far from being truly angry. He had kissed her back, hadn't he?

She laughed. It sounded like sunlight rippling off of the ocean.

"Crazy."

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They came at night.

"This way." Eliot!

More footsteps not Eliot. And a different sound, something that sounded like wheels.

"Parker?" He was whispering. Why was he whispering?

The mermaid swam forward cautiously.

"Parker." Eliot put his hand around her cheek and tucked her moon-bright hair back. "You're going home. You're going home, honey."

Amid the elation she felt (brightness, sparkling inside of her), she also felt a sudden inexplicable drop in her stomach.

Eliot must have seen it in her expression because he asked, "What's wrong? Don't you want to go home?"

Behind him, a man scoffed, "Does she even know what you're saying?"

Eliot turned and replied, "She understands me. She's more human than some I could name."

Parker tugged on Eliot's hand to get his attention. "Sam," she said, looking at the man, the one she had saved from the storm that night. The one whose calf had been lost.

The man walked closer and looked down at her.

"Sam," she said again. "Sam."

"You talk?" the man snarled suddenly, "Then answer me this. Why didn't you save my son?" he splashed the water in front of the mermaid's face. "Why didn't you save my son?!"

Eliot grabbed the man's shirt and hauled him close. "Quiet. You'll get us all caught, yelling like that." He looked at the shaken Parker. "Now are we going to have a problem, Nathan? Are we going to go through with this?"

The man – Nathan – was still looking at Parker. "Why did you save me and not my son?" he asked again, "Why did you save everyone else and let him die?"

Parker swam backwards away from the anger, away from the deep sadness in his eyes.

Eliot shook the man's shoulder getting his attention back. "She was caught when she brought your son's body back to shore," he hissed, "Did they tell you that? She brought him back to shore. Don't you think she would have saved him if she could have?"

"My son is dead," Nathan said to Eliot, seeming to deflate. "My son is dead."

"I know," the groundskeeper said gently, "I know. But we're going to get back at Blackpoole for building those weak ships, and we need to get her out of here if we're going to finish the job. Are you in?"

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They – Eliot, Nathan, and another man and a woman – packed Parker up into a strange contraption on wheels. It was a cart, except it was deep enough to hold a compartment full of seawater where Parker was seated, ribs-deep in the water.

The younger, dark man had boasted that it was his own invention, that it could be used to bring fresh, swimming fish to market in towns far, far inland, if he chose to sell it. It was genius.

Eliot growled and muttered for him to keep quiet. Parker watched him, feeling his sadness radiating off of him. She felt it reflect onto her own face.

He caught her eye and smiled softly. "You're going home, Parker."

"You named her?" the dark-skinned young man, Hardison, asked, curious.

Eliot threw him an annoyed glare. "She named herself. Watch." He pulled a cloth-wrapped package from his pocket and laughed silently when her eyes lit up. "Bacon." He held a piece up.

"Parker," the mermaid said and snatched it from his hand, munching happily.

"Cookie."

"Parker," she replied, glad to play their secret game.

"You love her," she heard the woman, who had hitherto been silent, say to Eliot.

He sighed. "She's a free spirit," he said quietly, "Never met a human girl like her."

"And you're letting her go?"

"She's not mine to keep," Eliot replied, "She's not anybody's."

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The attack was almost silent.

As the guards jumped out into the middle of the cart's path, catching onto the horses' reins, Eliot leapt out of the cart, his sword flashing silver in the moonlight.

Parker had never seen Eliot wear a sword before that night, but as well as the quiet, gentle character of the man who had cared for her and protected her fit him, so did this fighter, who slashed his sword so efficiently this way and that, cutting the guards down swiftly and silently.

Down went Guard Glenn. Down went Rieder, and then Guards Boylan and Kim. Down they all went, all in a matter seconds.

"Damn," said Hardison.

"There's more coming," Eliot whispered. "Go!"

Parker peered over the edge of the cart at her human, worried for his safety. She reached out to him.

He took her hand and kissed the back of it with a small smile. "Thank you for allowing me to serve you, my lady," he said and winked. When he pulled away, there was a golden coin in her hand.

"To remember me by."

The mermaid felt something shift inside of her as the cart lurched forward again, leaving Eliot behind. With strangely blurring and burning eyes, she added the coin to the rest of her collection, which Eliot had put into a small pouch for her so that she would not lose it.

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The combat was heavily one-sided but Eliot fought with both valor and skill. Still, his strength flagged as the battle wore on.

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The newly-freed griffin circled the estate and called out to his brethren in captivity.

The unicorn stopped in his tracks and turned around again.

So did the rest of them, all of the supernatural creatures that Eliot had cared for, that he and the others had set free that night, to ruin Lord Ian Blackpoole.

They all turned around and rushed back – by land and by air - to join their protector and friend in the fray.

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They were still far from the battleground when Eliot stumbled under Captain Steranko's blade.

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The fight was over quickly when the griffin swept down and wiped out half a dozen men with one wing, and more with a slash of the sharp claws on his massive paw. The unicorn gored all those that the siren held in the throes of her spell and all others that stood in his way, and the pixie flitted from one man to the next, jabbing, jabbing accurately, lethally, at eyes and other soft, painful parts.

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Quinn the griffin landed next to the fallen man and prodded him gently with his beak.

Dying.

The man smelled like death. He was close to it.

A hand covered in red lifted and landed on the beak. "Thank you, old friend," Eliot whispered. He coughed wetly and groaned. "Parker," he whispered, eyelids fluttering closed.

The griffin breathed in the man's scent. Colder. Closer to death.

Exchanging a look with the unicorn, which stood guard over the man with gore dripping from his silvery horn, the griffin gently grasped the dying soldier in his talons and lifted up into the air.

He flew towards the sea.

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They – the team of thieves Eliot had fallen in with to plan his charges' escape – they arrived at a quiet beach and carried Parker to the edge of the water.

The woman, Sophie, ran a gentle hand through Parker's hair. "He'll be alright," she told her.

Water rolled down the mermaid's face and dripped off of her chin. Strange. Her eyes had never leaked water before.

Nathan knelt down beside her. "Thank you," he said softly, "Thank you for saving my life. Thank you for bringing Sam back."

The mermaid tilted her head and looked at the man. "Sam," she said sadly, "Sam."

Just then, the wind changed. It blew down from above, and looking up, they saw a gigantic winged creature bearing down on them, holding something clutched in its talons.

A man, they saw, as the great creature dipped down and gently deposited the unconscious man on the sandy beach.

Sophie gasped, a sharp intake of breath, when she identified the bloody, torn mess.

Parker, seeing Eliot, had let out a wounded, wordless cry, and dragged herself nearer to him. Now, she cradled his head in her arms, and a torrent of water leaked out of her eyes, just like the red that leaked out of his injuries.

Cold. Cold like her. Not warm like Eliot always had been. She touched his face. Cold. Pale.

Blue eyes fluttered open. "Parker," Eliot breathed, then choked and gasped like a landed fish. His throat spasmed and he coughed up more of the red liquid. Blood.

"El- El-ee-ot. Eliot," Parker sobbed, saying his name for the first time, "Eliot."

A tired smile spread on the dying man's lips. "That's right. 'S my name."

"Eliot."

"Did it," Eliot gasped, "You're free now. You're home."

Tears dripped onto his face, his hair, his neck.

"Shh, don't cry. Don't cry, darling." Salt water. Sea water on his face, his lips. "Don't cry."

"Eliot."

Eliot shivered, prompting Nathan to take his coat off and cover him with it, although he knew that he would not be able to stop the cold of death from creeping into the man's bones.

"Parker," Eliot whispered, "What's it like? To not have to breathe?" Eyes as blue as the stormy sea looked up at her. "Will you take me with you? Take me with you, Parker."

She shook her head. No-Fins needed air to survive. Otherwise they went limp and cold and never moved again.

"Take me with you. Please."

The dark-skinned man protested when the mermaid began dragging the wounded man towards the water. "Hey," he said, "you'll only kill him faster if you do that."

Nathan put a hand on Hardison's shoulder. "He'll be dead soon anyway. He wants this."

"He'll spend his last moments with her, and then he'll be free," finished Sophie. She sighed and wiped a tear from her own eye. "One doesn't see that kind of real romance these days," she commented. "Everything's all about princesses asleep in towers and heroic princes guided by magical fairies who just happen to know everything. Now this, this is true love."

The men exchanged wary, amused looks. Sophie.

They watched the mermaid and her human disappear into the dark water.

"What do you want to steal now?"

They had stolen and freed Lord Blackpoole's entire prized menagerie. Unbeknownst to them at this time, his entire private army had been decimated as well. Lord Ian Blackpoole was a thoroughly ruined man.

"Let's go steal a kingdom!"

"We already did that last year," Hardison said with a shrug.

"How about shoes?" Sophie suggested, "Let's go steal a glass slipper."

"What was that about a kingdom?"

( o ) ( o ) ( o ) ( o ) ( o ) ( o ) ( o ) ( o ) ( o ) ( o )

The mermaid swam, her heavy load dragging her heart down as well. She made sure to keep Eliot's face above the cold water, but his breaths had ceased before she even got very far out.

Still, she swam.

She swam to a place she knew, a place he knew as well – he had grown up there, and as a boy, he had spent his days on this very sea. He had brought her home, so she was bringing him to his.

As she traveled, tears dripped down onto the man's face.

"Eliot. Eliot," she said over and over again, "Eliot."

She arrived in time to see the sun rise. As it rose, silver and gold and rose-red flew sparkling across the ocean. When the golden rays reached the dead man's face, reflecting off of the tears that had fallen on it, the mermaid felt the limp body in her arms jerk and then the silvery-gold-rose-red tendrils began to wrap around his body, faster and thicker as the sun climbed higher, and soon the bundle became too hot for her to hold.

Without her to hold it up, the body began to sink, and as it sank, the shining tendrils of sun-magic unwrapped, and when the last of it was gone, the mermaid saw what was left.

Eyes closed in the familiar face, still as death, long chestnut hair flowing in the movement of the ocean, then down, down, to where a…a fish tail began, down to the tips of a magnificent fin.

The mermaid tilted her head in confusion. She had never given thought to how she had been created, but this, she knew, was quite abnormal. She was the only one of her kind that she had ever met, and she had lived for a very long time.

She had very little time to ponder this because the eyes opened.

The merman who was once Eliot looked around in confusion. The last thing he remembered was cold. Cold. Dying. Dying in the mermaid's arms.

Parker was in front of him, gazing at him in wonderment. She looked…beautiful.

Then he realized that everything around him was tinted in blue-green, like…He looked up. He had been here before. Underwater. This was water all around him. He didn't remember taking a breath before diving under, so far under the surface of the water.

He looked at his hands, at his chest, the blood all washed away and the brutal wounds healed over.

He looked down, down, at where his legs were supposed to be and jerked back in amazement. The scaly fish-tail followed him, making him realize that…

He looked at Parker. "How?" he asked her, the sounds muffled by the water all around them, "What happened?"

She grinned. Then she swam at him so fast and forcefully that the breath would have been knocked out of him had he had one, and began kissing him, the momentum of her tackle turning them in the water around and around.

Of course, he kissed back.

He didn't need to stop for breath. He didn't need to breathe. This was what freedom felt like. This. Tangled up in the arms of the woman he loved, kissing her until they were dizzy from spinning in circles in the water.

Parker pulled away and touched his face, a bright grin lighting her face up, her eyes still leaking water, but out of happiness.

_I love you,_ she told him in the fish language, _I love you._

The once-human's eyes widened, then crinkled at the edges in a smile.

_I love you, too, Parker,_ he replied, laughing like waves splashing against rocks.

( o ) ( o ) ( o ) ( o ) ( o ) ( o ) ( o ) ( o ) ( o ) ( o )

And they lived happily ever after, chasing each other, exploring deep underwater caves together, and racing with the schools of silvery fish, all under the deep blue sea.

The End.

( o ) ( o ) ( o ) ( o ) ( o ) ( o ) ( o ) ( o ) ( o ) ( o )

* * *

AN: See? Happy ending! I know I scared you for a while there, but it's happy!

I know, I know. I'm crazy. Well-known fact.

On to the story notes:

Parker and money. I had to work it in somehow. Now tell me you didn't laugh when you realized that the shiny "shell" was actually a coin.

"Calf" is what baby dolphins and a lot of large sea mammal babies are called. That is why Sam is Nate's "calf" to Parker.

The exotic animals are named after characters on the show. The characteristics of the human characters are supposed to match up with the mythical creatures. I was debating on whether I should have a gremlin named Chaos who escaped and drove Hardison crazy but decided against it. Also, the unicorn was originally named Hanzo, as in Hanzo sword. I decided Shelley was a better choice.

The guards are named after safe brands and security systems. Security, guards…get it?!

The bit with the seashell bra and starfish hair accessory was me being snarky about the romanticized image of mermaids (I mean, would you wear seashells as a bra? No. They'd rub you raw, that's why! Why on earth would mermaids do it? I mean, I personally would opt for a sponge, if I had to wear some poor sea creature on my nonexistent boobs), as was what Sophie said about "true love." Ditto for "Let's go steal a glass slipper."

Parker – bacon: You try thinking of a food that Eliot-from-fairytaleland would eat that sounds even vaguely like "Parker"! It's not that easy, is it? And yes, a sandwich is a bit of an anachronism. So what? Bet you didn't even notice until I pointed it out, did you? (Crabby much? I'm stressed, 'kay?)

Bonus: "I love you" in fish language is actually literally translated as "I find the color of your scales/the design of your spine/the length of your tail/the size of your teeth/etc. attractive and would therefore like to spawn with you for this mating season, and perhaps next season as well if both of us manage not to get eaten by then"…but you get the general idea.

Bonus 2: Hardison was inspired by this encounter to build what he called his "Twenty-Thousand Leagues Under the Sea Boat," which was basically a boat that could travel under water. Did it work? Just find Nemo and ask him. (Reference to Jules Verne)

Again, Happy Birthday, Ultra! *huggle*!


End file.
